An electoral division (ED, ) is a legally defined administrative area in the

Republic of Ireland Ireland ( ga, Éire ), also known as the Republic of Ireland (), is a country in north-western Europe consisting of 26 of the 32 Counties of Ireland, counties of the island of Ireland. The capital and largest city is Dublin, on the eastern ...

, generally comprising multiple

townland A townland ( ga, baile fearainn; Ulster-Scots: ''toonlann'') is a small geographical division of land, historically and currently used in Ireland and in the Western Isles in Scotland, typically covering . The townland system is of Gaelic orig ...

s, and formerly a subdivision of urban and rural districts. Until 1996, EDs were known as district electoral divisions (DEDs, ) in the 29 county council areas and wards in the five

county borough County borough is a term introduced in 1889 in the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland, to refer to a borough or a city independent of county council control, similar to the unitary authorities created since the 1990s. An equivalent te ...

s. Until 1972, DEDs also existed in

Northern Ireland Northern Ireland ( ga, Tuaisceart Éireann ; sco, label= Ulster-Scots, Norlin Airlann) is a part of the United Kingdom, situated in the north-east of the island of Ireland, that is variously described as a country, province or region. Nort ...

. The predecessor poor law electoral divisions were introduced throughout the island of Ireland in the 1830s. The divisions were used as local-government

electoral area An electoral district, also known as an election district, legislative district, voting district, constituency, riding, ward, division, or (election) precinct is a subdivision of a larger state (a country, administrative region, or other polity ...

s until 1919 in what is now the Republic and until 1972 in Northern Ireland.

History until partition

Electoral divisions originated under the Poor Relief (Ireland) Act 1838 as "poor law electoral divisions":

electoral division An electoral district, also known as an election district, legislative district, voting district, constituency, riding, ward, division, or (election) precinct is a subdivision of a larger state (a country, administrative region, or other poli ...

s of a poor law union (PLU) returning one or more members to the PLU's

board of guardians Boards of guardians were ''ad hoc'' authorities that administered Poor Law in the United Kingdom from 1835 to 1930. England and Wales Boards of guardians were created by the Poor Law Amendment Act 1834, replacing the parish overseers of the po ...

. The boundaries of these were drawn by Poor Law Commissioners, with the intention of producing areas roughly equivalent in both population and "rateable value" ( rates being the property tax which funded local government). This meant that while electoral divisions almost always contiguous, they might bear little relation to natural community boundaries. Elections used

first-past-the-post In a first-past-the-post electoral system (FPTP or FPP), formally called single-member plurality voting (SMP) when used in single-member districts or informally choose-one voting in contrast to ranked voting, or score voting, voters cast thei ...

in single-member divisions and multiple non-transferable vote in those electing two (or occasionally more) guardians. The 1838 act required electoral divisions to comprise complete

s; an 1839 amendment empowered the Commissioners to ignore this restriction when constituting a large town into a single electoral division and dividing it into "wards" for poor law elections. Typically, poor law wards matched pre-existing municipal ward boundaries, though the respective

electoral franchise Suffrage, political franchise, or simply franchise, is the right to vote in public, political elections and referendums (although the term is sometimes used for any right to vote). In some languages, and occasionally in English, the right to v ...

s differed. In 1872, the Poor Law Commissioners were replaced by the

Local Government Board for Ireland The Local Government Board for Ireland was an agency of the Dublin Castle administration that liaised with the various local authorities in Ireland. It was created in 1872 and lasted until Partition in 1921–22. History The Board was created u ...

(LGBI) which had broader powers. The Commissioners and LGBI had power to revise most local boundaries, including electoral divisions. Returns of the valuation of each electoral division were made to Parliament in 1846, 1866, and 1901. The

Local Government (Ireland) Act 1898 The Local Government (Ireland) Act 1898 (61 & 62 Vict. c. 37) was an Act of the Parliament of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland that established a system of local government in Ireland similar to that already created for England, ...

established a system of

administrative counties An administrative county was a first-level administrative division in England and Wales from 1888 to 1974, and in Ireland from 1899 until either 1973 (in Northern Ireland) or 2002 (in the Republic of Ireland). They are now abolished, although mos ...

divided into "county districts" (

urban Urban means "related to a city". In that sense, the term may refer to: * Urban area, geographical area distinct from rural areas * Urban culture, the culture of towns and cities Urban may also refer to: General * Urban (name), a list of people ...

and

rural In general, a rural area or a countryside is a geographic area that is located outside towns and cities. Typical rural areas have a low population density and small settlements. Agricultural areas and areas with forestry typically are descri ...

districts) run by directly elected

county council A county council is the elected administrative body governing an area known as a county. This term has slightly different meanings in different countries. Ireland The county councils created under British rule in 1899 continue to exist in Irel ...

s and district councils. PLUs comprised one or more county districts, and poor law electoral divisions were renamed district electoral divisions (DEDs). Two rural district councillors were elected from each rural district DED, who were also ex officio guardians of the corresponding PLU. By contrast, urban districts had separate elections for councillors (elected from wards) and PLU guardians (elected from DEDs). The LGBI got temporary power to redraw boundaries to adapt to the 1898 act, which as regards DEDs it used mainly around municipal areas (

s, urban districts, and towns with commissioners). If a municipal border crossed '''' DED, the LGBI split it into two DEDs, '''' Urban and '''' Rural. In general, a town or city's DEDs and wards were given the same boundaries, and a town not divided into wards formed a single DED; however, there were cases of multiple wards in a single DED and vice versa. County electoral divisions (for the county council) were formed from groups of DEDs. The 1898 changes also made DEDs the polling districts for Westminster elections. Whereas the 1841–1891 censuses had been broken down by

civil parish In England, a civil parish is a type of administrative parish used for local government. It is a territorial designation which is the lowest tier of local government below districts and counties, or their combined form, the unitary authorit ...

and townland, those of 1901 and 1911 were broken down by DED and townland. The Local Government (Ireland) Act 1919 mandated the

single transferable vote Single transferable vote (STV) is a multi-winner electoral system in which voters cast a single vote in the form of a ranked-choice ballot. Voters have the option to rank candidates, and their vote may be transferred according to alternate ...

(STV) from the 1920 local elections, and the LGBI created multi-seat "district electoral areas" by combining one-seat and two-seat DEDs.

Northern Ireland

After the 1920–22

partition of Ireland The partition of Ireland ( ga, críochdheighilt na hÉireann) was the process by which the Government of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland divided Ireland into two self-governing polities: Northern Ireland and Southern Ireland. ...

, the Stormont government took over the LGBI's powers within

; power to define DEDs fell initially to the

Minister of Home Affairs An interior minister (sometimes called a minister of internal affairs or minister of home affairs) is a cabinet official position that is responsible for internal affairs, such as public security, civil registration and identification, emergency ...

, later to the

Minister of Health and Local Government The Minister of Health and Local Government was a member of the Executive Committee of the Privy Council of Northern Ireland (Cabinet) in the Parliament of Northern Ireland which governed Northern Ireland Northern Ireland ( ga, Tuaiscear ...

, and finally to the Minister of Development. The

Parliament of Northern Ireland The Parliament of Northern Ireland was the home rule legislature of Northern Ireland, created under the Government of Ireland Act 1920, which sat from 7 June 1921 to 30 March 1972, when it was suspended because of its inability to restore ord ...

abolished STV in 1922 and returned to "district electoral divisions" instead of the larger "district electoral areas". The reconstituted DEDs were delineated in 1923 in time for the 1924 local election. The

Ulster Unionist Party The Ulster Unionist Party (UUP) is a unionist political party in Northern Ireland. The party was founded in 1905, emerging from the Irish Unionist Alliance in Ulster. Under Edward Carson, it led unionist opposition to the Irish Home Rule m ...

used

gerrymandering In representative democracies, gerrymandering (, originally ) is the political manipulation of electoral district boundaries with the intent to create undue advantage for a party, group, or socioeconomic class within the constituency. The m ...

to ensure unionist control in areas with small

nationalist Nationalism is an idea and movement that holds that the nation should be congruent with the state. As a movement, nationalism tends to promote the interests of a particular nation (as in a group of people), Smith, Anthony. ''Nationalism: Th ...

population majorities. PLUs were abolished in 1948 on the introduction of the National Health Serrvice, but DEDs remained the electoral units for rural districts, and largely aligned with the wards used in urban districts. There were very few changes to DED boundaries made between 1923 and their obsolescence under the

Local Government (Boundaries) Act (Northern Ireland) 1971 The Local Government (Boundaries) Act (Northern Ireland) 1971 was an Act of the Parliament of Northern Ireland, passed in 1971 to replace the previous system of local authorities established by the Local Government (Ireland) Act 1898. The system ...

, except to adjust to extension of urban municipal boundaries. The 1926–1951 censuses were published down to townland level, while for those of 1961–1971, the lowest level of detail was DED or ward. The 1971 act replaced the two-tier county and district local government model with a single-tier district model, with each of the 26 new districts divided into "district electoral divisions to be known as wards". A boundary commissioner delineating the districts and wards could disregard the old DEDs but use them for reference where convenient. The centres of the new districts of Antrim, Castlereagh and

Magherafelt Magherafelt (, �mˠaxəɾʲəˈfʲiːlt̪ˠə is a small town and civil parish in County Londonderry, Northern Ireland. It had a population of 8,805 at the 2011 Census. It is the biggest town in the south of the county and is the social, econo ...

were defined in terms of the DEDs of the same names. The worsening of

the Troubles The Troubles ( ga, Na Trioblóidí) were an ethno-nationalist conflict in Northern Ireland that lasted about 30 years from the late 1960s to 1998. Also known internationally as the Northern Ireland conflict, it is sometimes described as an " ...

meant direct rule was introduced in 1972; among the changes intended to conciliate nationalists was the reintroduction of STV for the 1973 local elections, based on district electoral areas made up of multiple wards. The term "district electoral division" is obsolete, "

ward Ward may refer to: Division or unit * Hospital ward, a hospital division, floor, or room set aside for a particular class or group of patients, for example the psychiatric ward * Prison ward, a division of a penal institution such as a pris ...

" being used instead. The

Local Government Act (Northern Ireland) 1972 The Local Government (Northern Ireland) Act 1972 (1972 c. 9) was an Act of the Parliament of Northern Ireland that constituted district councils to administer the twenty-six local government districts created by the Local Government (Boundaries ...

requires a boundary commissioner review every 12 years, and the wards were last redefined in 2012 by the

Department of the Environment An environmental ministry is a national or subnational government agency politically responsible for the environment and/or natural resources. Various other names are commonly used to identify such agencies, such as Ministry of the Environment, ...

of the then

Northern Ireland Executive The Northern Ireland Executive is the devolved government of Northern Ireland, an administrative branch of the legislature – the Northern Ireland Assembly. It is answerable to the assembly and was initially established according to the ...

Republic of Ireland

Because of the 1919 change, DEDs have no independent use in what is now the

; however, they remained legally defined units used in

civil registration Civil registration is the system by which a government records the vital events ( births, marriages, and deaths) of its citizens and residents. The resulting repository or database has different names in different countries and even in differ ...

, land registration, statistical reporting, and as references for specifying the makeup of larger units, or the location of smaller ones. There were comprehensive revisions of the DEDs in

County Dublin "Action to match our speech" , image_map = Island_of_Ireland_location_map_Dublin.svg , map_alt = map showing County Dublin as a small area of darker green on the east coast within the lighter green background of ...

in 1971, to facilitate redrawing electoral boundaries in growing suburbs of Dublin city, and again in 1986, when it was divided into the electoral counties of Dún Laoghaire–Rathdown, Fingal, and South Dublin. Otherwise DEDs were rarely if ever changed, so that a few came to cross county/county-borough boundaries which had been adjusted. The Local Government Act 1994 substituted the name "electoral division" to replace both the names "district electoral division" (as used in counties) and "ward" (as used in county boroughs, themselves renamed "cities" by the Local Government Act 2001). This change was commenced in 1996. Ward boundaries had been revised more often than those of DEDs. There are a total of 3,440 EDs in the state, with an average population of 1,447 and average area of . Populations now vary widely, ranging in 2016 from 38,894 for

Blanchardstown Blanchardstown () is a large outer suburb of Dublin in the modern county of Fingal, Ireland. Located northwest of Dublin city centre, it has developed since the 1960s from a small village to a point where Greater Blanchardstown is the largest u ...

– Blakestown in Fingal to 12 for Lackagh,

North Tipperary North Tipperary ( ga, Tiobraid Árann Thuaidh) was a county in Ireland. It was part of the Mid-West Region and was also located in the province of Munster. It was named after the town of Tipperary and consisted of 48% of the land area of the ...

and 7 for Ballynaneashagh,

Waterford City "Waterford remains the untaken city" , mapsize = 220px , pushpin_map = Ireland#Europe , pushpin_map_caption = Location within Ireland##Location within Europe , pushpin_relief = 1 , coordinates ...

. The DED/ED has been the lowest level of detail for printed census publications since independence. To maintain confidentiality, the Central Statistics Office (CSO) amalgamates 32 EDs with low population into neighbouring EDs in the presentation of detailed census data. Conversely, more populous EDs are subdivided to provide Small Area Population Statistics (SAPS); whereas sub-DED data could previously be requested from the CSO for a fee, SAPS data has been published online since 2002. The Nomenclature of Territorial Units for Statistics (NUTS) classification for Ireland formerly specified as "local administrative unit" (LAU) the 3,441 EDs (counting the Meath and Louth portions of St Mary's ED separately). Since 2019, Ireland's NUTS LAUs have been the 166

local electoral area A local electoral area (LEA; ga, Toghlimistéir Áitiúil) is an electoral area for elections to local authorities in Ireland. All elections use the single transferable vote. The Republic of Ireland is divided into 166 LEAs, with an average p ...

s.compare "Correspondence table LAU – NUTS 2016, EU-28 and EFTA / available Candidate Countries" 2018 and 2019

Citations

Sources

*
Local Government (Ireland) Act 1898

External links

;All island
Townlands in Ireland
– OpenStreetMap project mapping administrative divisions of the island of Ireland, including istrictelectoral divisions *Boundaries of Administrative Counties, Co. Boroughs, Urban & Dispensary Districts & District Electoral Divisions (4 sheets, Ordnance Survey of Ireland) *
1912 edition
— from the Leslie Brown Map Collection *
1935 edition, partly revised 1961
— from the

Placenames Database of Ireland The Placenames Database of Ireland ( ga, Bunachar Logainmneacha na hÉireann), also known as , is a database and archive of place names in Ireland. It was created by Fiontar, Dublin City University in collaboration with the Placenames Branch of ...

;Republic of Ireland
Electoral Divisions - OSi National Statutory Boundaries
— interactive map and downloadable geographic information system datafiles (there are duplicates of EDs affected by the 2019 Cork boundary change)
Categories of Disadvantaged Areas
Set of Excel spreadsheets, listing all townlands and the 1898 District Electoral Division they belong to — from Department of Agriculture and Food
Electoral districts in Ireland
— from Placenames Database of Ireland; a total of 3474, with some double-counted ;Northern Ireland * {{cite web , author1=Ordnance Survey of Northern Ireland , title=Administrative map of Northern Ireland showing the boundaries of administrative counties, county & municipal boroughs, urban, union & rural districts, district electoral divisions & townships , url=https://collections.lib.uwm.edu/digital/collection/agdm/id/11899 , website=American Geographical Society Library Digital Map Collection , publisher=University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee Libraries , access-date=1 October 2020 , language=en , date=1935 History of local government in Ireland Subdivisions of the Republic of Ireland Electoral areas in the Republic of Ireland